Concert – Page 151 – C Major Entertainment

Beethoven 9 – Ouverture “Egmont”, op.84

A one-of-a-kind musical event is in the making! Christian Thielemann, one of the most recognized conductors of our time, joins forces with the prestigious Wiener Philharmoniker and UNITEL, the world’s leading audiovisual production company for classical music, in a monumental project: BEETHOVEN 9, the recording of all nine symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven for TV, DVD and New Media: the “Beethoven cycle of the 21st century”! Using the newest technology of our century, UNITEL and Austrian Television (ORF) produce this “super-cycle” in the Golden Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein in HD and 5.0 Surround Sound. BEETHOVEN 9 kicked off in December 2008 with the recording of the First and Second Symphonies. At the rate of two recordings per year, the cycle will be completed by April 2010. The genesis and unfolding of this project will be accompanied by a documentary filmed in HD. Between 2010 and 2013 the orchestra will crown the venture with special event performances of the complete cycle in major cities around the world. These concert cycles will rank among the musical highlights of these years. They will be accompanied by the recordings, which will be released prior to the start of the world tour, when international attention is at its peak. Music lovers can enjoy Beethoven’s symphonies either live in the host cities or on television, Internet or DVD. Live transmission from the Golden Hall is possible already during the recording stage. BEETHOVEN 9 brings to a new climax the longstanding collaboration between Thielemann, who enjoys a sterling reputation as an interpreter of Beethoven and the German Romantics, and the Wiener Philharmoniker, which has been cultivating the music of Beethoven since its founding nearly 170 years ago and is one of the few great orchestras to have preserved its unique sound. UNITEL CLASSICA can look back on more than 40 years of collaboration with the Wiener Philharmoniker and on its pioneering cycles of Beethoven’s symphonic works with Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein.

3 Stars in Vienna

Bathed in the warm light of the setting sun, Vienna’s imperial Schönbrunn Palace provides a romantic setting for this open-air concert held shortly before the final match of the Euro 2008 football championship. And shining even more brightly than the palace are the stars of the evening, Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón and Plácido Domingo. The trio’s first joint concert, given at Berlin’s Waldbühne for the 2006 football World Cup, was recorded by UNITEL CLASSICA and awarded the Platinum DVD for sales of over 50,000 DVDs in Germany and over 100,000 worldwide. The Schönbrunn concert also broke records with 3.3 million viewers watching the concert live or deferred in Germany and Austria.

Lang Lang at Schönbrunn

Lang Lang, Zubin Mehta, the Wiener Philharmoniker – the only thing that could make an outdoor orchestral concert more attractive would be a spectacular venue, such as a majestic Baroque palace. And here it is: Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace, with its brightly lit facade on a resplendent summer evening! Held the day before the final match of the Euro 2008 football championship, this concert rallied both football fans and music lovers to Vienna’s most beautiful imperial palace. At 26, Lang Lang is already considered as one of the top pianists in the world. He made his international breakthrough at the age of 17, and has since been performing with all major orchestras and leading conductors. In this concert, the young Chinese artist – the “pop star” of the international piano elite – dazzled his way into the hearts of the audience with his rendition of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2. “His mighty, lightning-fast finger acrobatics were virtuoso and technically perfect – amazing to the eyes and ears.” (Wiener Zeitung) Conductor Zubin Mehta, who had warmed up the Wiener Philharmoniker with Weber’s Oberon Overture before tackling the Chopin, led his musicians in a rousing performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony after the intermission. Now crisply outlined against the dark-blue sky, Schönbrunn Palace transformed itself into an expressive backdrop for Beethoven’s dramatic symphonic masterpiece. The excitement was not over with the last chord, however, as Lang Lang returned to give several encores, including Chopin’s A-flat major Polonaise, which “roused the audience to rapturous standing ovations.” (Wiener Zeitung)

Young Singers Project at Salzburg Festival

In 2008, an exciting new international opera-singer project was launched in the framework of the Salzburg Festival, the Young Singers Project, sponsored by Montblanc International. Led by world-renowned tenor Michael Schade and soprano Barbara Bonney, a small number of selected young talents from around the world were invited to train their vocal and acting skills for several weeks during the festival season. The “stars of tomorrow” live together, attend master classes with great singers, take part in rehearsals, learn roles from operas being given at the festival – in short, they are invited by the most prestigious music festival in the world to prepare for their future musical career. This documentary records the first edition of the “Young Singers Project,” an artistic endeavor that reflects the Salzburg Festival’s growing experience and success in providing the stage for the breakthrough of such renowned artists like Anna Netrebko. In this program, the students are briefly introduced by Schade and Bonney, and are shown working with their mentors, including such distinguished master class guest professors as Christa Ludwig and Jürgen Flimm. Their spontaneity and dynamism draw us into their lives; their talent and ambition make us hope that they will soon conquer the world’s great stages, such as the Salzburg Festival itself. As the crowning point of the documentary, the program also features excerpts from the final concert in which all eleven young singers perform with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg under the direction of Ivor Bolton. Here the festival public was able to admire the artists at the threshold of their international career. One of them, Joel Prieto, won the first prize in Plácido Domingo’s Operalia Competition in 2008, and is thus already on his way to fulfilling his dream.

Recital Arcadi Volodos

For the first time in over nine years, Arcadi Volodos has agreed to record an entire concert for TV again. Indeed, his recital at Vienna’s Musikverein, for which he has chosen works by Skryabin, Ravel, Schumann and Liszt, features a line-up of Romantic to early 20th-century heavyweights, which Volodos renders with his inimitable blend of ethereal lightness and forceful vigor. The recital begins with a selection of pieces by Alexander Skryabin, in which Volodos displays his phenomenal technique, culminating in the White Mass. Under Volodos’ hands, Maurice Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales becomes “a kaleidoscope of transparent, gossamer colors” (Die Presse). While Volodos’ account of Schumann’s Waldszenen flashes with startling harmonic echoes of the Ravel piece, his rendition of Liszt’s Après une lecture du Dante from the Années de pèlerinage “radiates modernity” (Der Standard). The keyboard sensation provides a further example of his artistry in his encores, in which he demonstrates his talent for creating his own dazzling piano transcriptions of works by other composers.

BEETHOVEN 9

In the monumental project BEETHOVEN 9, Christian Thielemann, one of the most widely recognized conductors of our time, joins forces with the prestigious Wiener Philharmoniker for their first-ever highdefinition recording of all nine symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven.

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